Note: the review and operating experience of the Honor Play 7A smartphone is current at the time of publication. Unless otherwise stated, photographs were taken on the Honor Play 7A smartphone in automatic mode and are presented in original quality, without processing or compression. Quotes are free translation into Russian
Honor Play 7A is a smartphone from almost the lowest price category among Honor smartphones in 2021 and early 2021 sold in Mainland China, which provides the user with the Android 8.0.0 operating system in the EMUI 8.0.0 shell and modern functions. In Russia, a similar smartphone is sold under the name Honor 7A Pro, but with some differences in technical specifications.
Specifications:
- Model: AUM-AL00
- Release year: 2018
- Operating system: Android 8.0.0
- Shell: EMUI 8.0.0
- Shell Build Number: AUM-L29 8.0.0.150(C185)
- Security patch: April 1, 2021
- Housing: matte polycarbonate with glossy edges
- Color: magical black night
- Display: 5.7″, 18:9, TFT LCD (IPS), 1440x720 pixels, 283PPI, 16 million colors
- Chipset: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 430
- Processor: 8-core, 64-bit, 4 x 1.4GHz ARM® Cortex®-A53™ and 4 x 1.1GHz ARM® Cortex®-A53™
- Graphics chip: Qualcomm® Adreno™ 505
- RAM: 2GB
- Data storage memory: 32GB
- Memory card: 128GB, supports MicroSD memory cards up to 256GB
- Main camera: 13MP CMOS with phase detection autofocus, flash, 4x digital zoom and 1080p video recording support
- Front camera: 8MP with flash and support for video recording in 1080p quality
- SIM: 2 Nano-SIM
- Network: 2G, 3G, 4G (LTE) GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- LTE-FDD: B1/B3/B5/B8
- TD-LTE: B38/B39/B40/B41
- UMTS (WCDMA): B1/B5/B8
- TD-SCDMA: B34/B39
- CDMA: BC0 (800 MHz), China Telecom only
Appearance
Honor Quality You Can Trust
More stringent smartphone reliability testing standards ensure that the quality of Honor smartphones is at a high level.
Test standards*: • Turning the device on and off (Guarantee that the device will work properly after frequent turns on and off): 10,000 times • Entering and exiting standby mode (Guarantee that the standby mode will work properly): 100,000 times • Power button testing: 200,000 times • Volume button testing: 50,000 times • USB port testing: 10,000 times • Headphone jack testing: 5,000 times • Touch screen testing: 800,000 times • Strong pressing: 2,000 times • Pressure under heavy load: 70kg • Temperature shock: -40°C~70°C • Long-term high temperature and humidity testing: temperature +55°C, 95% humidity • Temperature cycling testing: -20°C~55°C
* All testing was carried out in the Honor laboratory.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
Thanks to this testing, the smartphone is well assembled and not a single part creaks or “plays”, and the power and volume buttons can be pressed like new after 4.5 months of use.
But the material on the back of the smartphone case is not very durable - minor scratches appeared at the bottom with careful use, and the matte coating wears off in places where it often comes into contact with hands, such as the curves of the case towards the side edges of the smartphone. In addition, it is easily soiled and stains and fingerprints remain on it.
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
But Honor has applied an excellent solution to the side edges, making them glossy. Because of this, they do not wear off and the decent appearance of the smartphone is not lost.
By the way, on the left side there is a tray for two Nano-SIM SIM cards and a microSD memory card, and it is slightly recessed. On the tray, Honor carefully marked the inscription “To screen”, indicating which side it should be inserted into the smartphone.
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
3 separate card slots
Two SIM cards can be inserted at the same time for Internet access and phone calls and one MicroSD memory card with a capacity of up to 256GB for storing photos and data.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
A 128GB memory card works great.
On the right side there is a power button and volume buttons.
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
On the top there is a 3.5mm audio jack, and on the bottom there is a speaker, a microUSB port and a microphone. The interlocutors did not complain about the microphone’s performance.
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
Histen audio effects
Histen audio effects are based on the human psychoacoustic model and the auditory perception model to comprehensively improve the sound quality of headphones: adaptive volume boost, distortion correction, virtual bass enhancement and many other sound effects.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
If you turn on the HUAWEI Histen audio effects and 3D audio , and also select the On-Ear , the sound in the Marley Positive Vibration headphones becomes better - there are more lows and highs, and the music starts to sound clearer. But audio effects do not always turn on automatically when you connect headphones. There is only one solution: open the Settings , go to the Sound and click on Huawei Histen Audio Effects . After such actions, the effects are turned on.
High Volume Your Pocket Speaker
The new generation of high volume technology uses intelligent power amplifier chips and high-sensitivity speaker components to achieve a sound volume of 88dB, an improvement of 80%* compared to Honor Play 6A*.
*According to HUAWEI Labs.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
The speaker of the smartphone is very loud and of sufficient quality, so there were no problems when making calls using standard ringtones of the EMUI 8.0.0 shell.
On the back there is the main camera, flash and additional microphone, and below is the company logo and smartphone model. The main camera protrudes a little, which can make it difficult to use the smartphone when it is lying on the table - when you press the screen in the upper left part, the smartphone wobbles.
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
And on the front there is a notification indicator, an infrared sensor, a front camera, a speaker and a flash. The company logo is also located at the bottom.
The notification indicator has 3 colors and 5 actions:
- Lights up red - indicates that the battery charge is less than 5%, and also that the battery is being charged, the charge of which is less than 10%
- Blinking pale yellow - indicates a missed notification from the VKontakte application or a missed notification while the battery is charging
- Lights up pale yellow - the battery is charging, the charge is from 11% to 90%
- Flashing green - indicates a missed notification
- Lights green - indicates that the battery is charged at 90% or higher
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
In Do Not Disturb , the notification indicator is not active, which is a plus at night.
There are no complaints about the conversational speaker - the interlocutors can be heard well and clearly.
As well as the infrared sensor, which does a good job of automatically changing the screen brightness, only occasionally making mistakes. But during a telephone conversation, it turns off the screen not very well - the screen turns off only when the smartphone is almost tightly pressed to the ear, but the slightest deviation from this “norm” turns on the screen and a situation arises of accidental touch screen presses.
The smartphone also feels great at temperatures from -15°C to +20°C. Tested multiple times with 30-minute runs with a smartphone in hand using the Nike+ Run Club app with always-on GPS and running data logging.
As for convenience, the smartphone fits comfortably in the hand due to its elongated dimensions and small thickness, but you can only reach the opposite edge or corner with one hand using the Mini Window .
As for the vibration motor of the smartphone, it is excellent. The vibration is felt to be of high quality and not “rattling”.
Results, advantages and disadvantages
Inexpensive, not overly functional and quite beautiful, Honor 7A will definitely find its buyer. If a person does not care so much about the speed and durability of a smartphone, this is his ideal choice. Having cameras capable of taking decent pictures, the user will be able to use such a phone normally, and a good battery will add confidence that in difficult situations a faithful assistant will always be ready.
Advantages:
- Low price.
- Good autonomy.
- Customizable shell.
- Not a bad screen.
Flaws:
- Case material.
- Mediocre performance.
Screen
5.7″ edge-to-edge screen for gaming in the palm of your hand
The 5.7" edge-to-edge* screen with 18:9 cinema aspect ratio lets you enjoy movies and games while also taking care of your eyes with Eye Care mode.
* Frameless screen is the main concept of the industry at the moment. Typically, an edge-to-edge screen refers to a screen with narrow bezels and a high screen-to-front ratio.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
The modern screen of the Honor Play 7A smartphone is of excellent quality, has a good sensor, excellent color rendition and viewing angles. True, it’s not entirely frameless, since there are frames on all four sides. And up close you can see the pixels due to the low resolution for such a diagonal.
Shot on CUBOT J3 PRO
The maximum brightness of the screen in the sun is a little lacking due to strong reflection - the text is readable, but with some discomfort.
And there is no protection against false taps on the screen if you hold the smartphone securely in one hand - for example, the slightest touch of a hand or finger can mistakenly “like” the Instagram or click on the input line, after which a virtual keyboard will appear.
But Honor has carefully pasted a protective film with a good quality oleophobic coating, so you don’t have to worry about scratches. True, the oleophobic coating lasted for 1-1.5 months.
Autonomy and battery
A three-ampere battery is practically the gold standard for modern devices. Therefore, autonomy is at a decent level, using up a full charge in one and a half days of normal use. If your plans include intensive consumption of media content, the battery may last for a much shorter time. He will obviously be able to withstand the day with great difficulty, but he will have to spend the evening near the outlet.
There is no support for fast charging standards, so you should ensure that the battery capacity level is constantly monitored. It will charge to its full capacity in 5-6 hours if it’s all used up. MicroUSB is used for charging, which means you shouldn’t expect shorter times, even with third-party power supplies.
Hardware + EMUI 8.0.0 shell
The smartphone is equipped with a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 430 chipset, the processor of which is generally sufficient for everyday tasks - the EMUI 8.0.0 shell interface works quickly and the speed of opening applications or web pages is fast, but not lightning fast. In addition, when running resource-intensive applications, it turned out to be a “cold” chipset - the back of the smartphone heats up slightly, becoming a little warm. The exception was the Google Translate in on-the-fly translation mode, using the main camera to point at the text - in this case, heating in the area of the main camera is already felt.
When it comes to gaming, the Qualcomm® Adreno™ 505 graphics chip lacks the performance to keep it smooth— Real Racing 3 slows down when racing against rivals, and Subway Surf can freeze for a second at the most inopportune moments.
There is also a lack of 2GB of RAM, which affects the comfort of using the smartphone - applications running in the background may close automatically; viewing a feed of posts with video files and GIF images in the VKontakte can lead to the application freezing, and often when opening links and returning to the feed, the VKontakte is restarted; copying information from one application to another leads to a restart of the previous one; Seamless updating of applications in the Play Store is possible only when the application store is open, otherwise the update is suspended and will resume only when the Play Store .
But there is enough memory for storing data, the volume of which is 32GB. After activating the shell, ~24GB is free, and it can be slightly increased by deleting partner applications and games: Google Sheets , Google Docs , Google Presentations , Messenger , Truecaller , Z Camera , Asphalt Nitro , Spider-Man , Dragonmania , Kingdoms , Puzzle Pets , Assassin's Creed . You can also remove the following standard EMUI 8.0.0 shell applications: FM radio , Mirror , Game Center , Backups , Phone Clone , Tips , Party mode , Honor store .
But there are no complaints about the GPS and GLONASS modules - it quickly picks up satellites and accurately determines the location.
Facial recognition Young people love their faces
Smartphone face recognition and unlocking, 1024 sets of facial size features, quick identification of facial features with support for eye position detection.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
Unlocking a smartphone using face recognition works well in good lighting and when the face is properly registered, although the screen brightness is automatically increased for recognition. It takes 2-3 seconds to recognize a face. Smart Lock Screen Notifications is enabled, the contents of notifications are hidden, but once the camera recognizes a face, the contents of the notifications are shown. There is a protection that, if face recognition fails 5 times, disables this unlocking method and requires entering a PIN code, password or pattern. But this protection does not work very well - the protection may not turn on even when the 15th attempt to unlock the smartphone using facial recognition has begun.
Performance and benchmarks
One of the weakest aspects of this phone is its hardware. 430 snapdragon is already a little old to use it for the second time in a row (it was installed in 6A). Added to this is the lack of RAM, two gigabytes of which are currently only sufficient for devices running Android Go. Therefore, with active use and the slightest hint of multitasking, unpleasant brakes begin. In ordinary, benign scenarios, he, of course, performs well, but he clearly still lacks a little memory.
Slowness manifests itself in other things as well. For example, waking up a device using a fingerprint sensor results in a visible delay, even when nothing is happening in the background. Outdated, slow LPDDR3 chips also have an effect, which, coupled with not the fastest permanent storage, will not be able to fully reveal all the capabilities of the 430.
Games run fine unless they're new. You won't be able to play something fresh even with the most minimal graphical refinements - the frame rate is incredibly low and can cause unsatisfactory performance in matches. Casual games and top titles of the past will be easily digested by the filling, and they are comfortable to play under any conditions. They adapt well to the aspect ratio, which was a novelty at the time of release.
WE RECOMMEND READING: THE BEST SMARTPHONES OF 2021.
Synthetics show predictable results:
- AnTuTu v6 – 45000 points.
- PCMark for Android – 1800 for computing performance and 920 for battery life.
- Geekbench – 670 and 2600 in single and multi-core tests, respectively.
Net
Supports China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom on 2G/3G/4G networks*
* The main and secondary SIM cards can be inserted into the slot in any order, as any SIM card slot can be used for the main SIM card (the main SIM card supports China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom in 2G/3G networks /4G), at this time the second SIM card slot automatically becomes an additional SIM card (the additional SIM card supports China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom in 2G network), but the simultaneous operation of two SIM cards of China Telecom operator is not supported , although Honor Play 7A supports any other combination of SIM cards from China's three largest operators.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
Honor Play 7A perfectly catches 3G and 4G (LTE) networks from the Beeline cellular operator in the city of Voronezh. The speed of mobile Internet on the 4G network is also excellent. But sometimes there are problems with switching from a Wi-Fi network to mobile data transfer. Solution: turn Airplane mode or restart your smartphone.
Several times, for unknown reasons, the mobile Internet stopped working. There is only one solution: restart your smartphone.
Battery
Long battery life with 3000mAh battery
A large 3000 mAh battery and Generation 5.0 intelligent energy-saving technology ensure that the Honor Play 7A smartphone operates all day long*.
*This data is based on Honor's testing of battery power and may vary as the actual battery life of a smartphone depends on many factors. Video playback: screen brightness - 60 nits, Airplane mode, local video file in 720p quality, volume at 50%. Audio playback: standard Music application, Airplane mode, local audio file in .mp3 format, playback in headphones, medium volume level.
— page about the smartphone on the official website of Honor
On average, one full battery charge is enough for 1.5 days of smartphone operation, which is 6-6.5 hours of active screen during moderately active use - viewing social networks, traffic jams and navigation in the Yandex.Maps , reading books in .epub format in the Lithium , " surfing" on the Internet through the Google Chrome , listening to music in the Apple Music , watching videos in the YouTube , constantly connecting to the Internet via Wi-Fi or a mobile network, as well as with application notifications turned on and at medium screen brightness with automatic change in brightness.
While charging, you can use your smartphone, as this does not cause discomfort - the smartphone hardly heats up, and the body becomes slightly warm. From the power adapter and cable included in the kit, the smartphone charges on average in 2-2.5 hours from 10-15%.
Overnight, the smartphone consumes 3% of the charge with applications unloaded from RAM, connected to a Wi-Fi network, active mobile communications and with Do Not Disturb .
Interface and features
EMUI, the shell for any Huawei smartphone and its subsidiary Honor brand, runs on 7A in tandem with Android 8 Oreo. The manufacturer himself made it a kind of transitional link, which at the same time resembles both iOS and Android. From the first, he took the absence of a separate screen of applications, which are all grouped on the home screen and their entire relative arrangement depends only on the user himself. Although, to the credit of the developers, all system behavior is very flexibly configured from the menu. It is very functional and offers changing parameters to suit every taste.
The navigation bar with functional buttons is also customizable - you can choose the location of the buttons or disable it completely, freeing up some space for other elements. At the same time, a gesture control scheme is selected, which is in a state of active development and is enriched with interesting features with each update.
